CHAPTER IX
RELIEF OF REFUGEES!
Furst Measures.
Amoxe the calamities due to the War [wrote in October, 1915, one of
the doctors employed by the Union of Zemstvos®] the problem of refugees
is particularly pressing. Suddenly driven from their homes, millions
of people found themselves in the most miserable and distressing
conditions. Lack of food and shelter very soon began to exert their
fatal effects upon these migrating hordes. Anyone who has had the
opportunity of spending some time amongst the refugees must have
observed the extraordinarily high rate of sickness and mortality. Wherever
a convoy of refugees halted even for a very short period, they always
left behind a number of fresh graves, and in some of these improvised
cemeteries there may be found a hundred or more new crosses. In
addition to epidemics, including cholera, which had been taking heavy
toll among them, diseases due to undernourishment occupy an important
place. It is evident that they find easy victims among those of
weaker constitution, but more particularly among the children.
These words were written in October, 1915, but the Zemstvo Union
had occasion long before that date to deal with the sufferings of
the refugees. The first refugees (from the province of Kalish) made
their appearance in central Russia very soon after the outbreak of
the War. The Ekaterinoslav provincial zemstvo board reported that
during the first few months of 1915, “a number of expelled Germans
and Jews arrived in the districts of Mariupol, Bakhmut, and
Slavyanoserbsk.” At the close of April and the beginning of May
vast numbers of Austrian Ruthenians abandoned their homes and
followed in the wake of the retreating Russian troops. At Lvov,
Tarnopol, and Kiev regular camps of refugees were established, and
as the Austro-German armies advanced there was a corresponding
! On the work of the Union of Towns in respect to refugee relief see
Astrov, The Effects of the War upon Russian Municipal Government and the
All-Russian Union of Towns, Chapter IX, in the volume The War and the
Russian Government (Yale University Press, 1929) in this series of the
Economic and Social History of the World War.
2 Izvestia (Bulletin), No. 40, p. 112.
